Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to help support workers in the aviation industry.

The UK Government recognises the impact COVID-19 has had on the aviation sector. In addition to the unprecedented cross-economy package of support, which included the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which the aviation sector has utilised extensively, we have put in place several measures to help the sector recover and support its workers.

Skills retention and skills fade for highly trained jobs is a key element of the sector’s recovery plan. To support this, we introduced the Aviation Skills Retention Platform (ASRP) in February 2021 to support the retention of skills within the sector, by offering increased visibility of opportunities across the sector. We are also looking to better understand employment trends through vacancy data submitted to the ASRP by employers.

The Department is also working with industry on maximising use of the existing support measures such as DWP’s Flexible Support Fund and Rapid Response Service to support aviation workers at risk of redundancy to stay in employment or move between sectors.